Thank God for the calming qualities, the sheer healing power of good food. If it weren't for the simple magic of my meal on Sunday evening, I don't know how the day would have ended... And thank goodness I can also manage to distract myself from my current daily nuisances, (albeit by eating, which is not always the recommended solution!) because I honestly don't know how I would get by otherwise...
But how wonderful is it when you get to work on a new recipe, when you settle down to the actual cooking process, and you actually manage to put together a really great meal WITHOUT BENDING OVER BACKWARDS? OK, I'm starting to sound like Martha Stewart here, or one of those how-to cooking magazines, but seriously...
I had had the day from hell, finally attacking my long-overdue housecleaning from top to bottom, and after discovering the creeping growth of MOLD on more than one wall in my apartment*, all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and die.
So what did I do to get my mind on other things? I pulled out the ingredients I had (for once) so cunningly gathered together on Saturday morning at the local market, and in less than an hour and a half, my blue-eyed companion and I were digging into an absolutely scrumptious rôti de veau aux épices. I should have known before I even got started that this recipe had all the makings of a winner: cinnamon, check! ginger, check! fresh cilantro, check! cumin, check! Oh, and not to mention that garlic clove, the organic lemon and the red onion. All mingled together in a heavenly sauce that simmered over the stove for less than an hour, and was then poured over a bed of couscous semolina with raisins and almond slivers. Ahhhhh... All the bad karma of that whole day just melted away, and I wanted that meal to last forever! And what made it even better was the simple fact that I had prepared it myself.
Plus, the presentation, further evidence that this recipe is a keeper: once you lay out the slices of veal on the couscous, you sprinkle some fresh cilantro over the top, and voilà, a work of art!
Oh, and one final thank-goodness for French butchers: that veal roast might have cost me a pretty penny, but it was oh-so-tender, so definitely worth every Euro.
For once, I was actually looking FORWARD to my leftovers at lunch yesterday...
I think I'm (finally!) getting the hang of this cooking thing... (Then again, don't ask me about the pork roast I mangled 2 weeks ago -- that's another story for another time.)
If interested, click on this so you can share in my delight!
* The withering letter I sent out to our rental agency today, registered with return receipt, also helped me get out of my funk -- at least for the moment. We'll see if it gets anywhere... These are the people, after all, who told me that I shouldn't be calling and bothering the landlord so often when our apartment was BURGLED last summer! God forbid I do anything other than write them their rental check en bonne et due forme on the 1st of every month.
But how wonderful is it when you get to work on a new recipe, when you settle down to the actual cooking process, and you actually manage to put together a really great meal WITHOUT BENDING OVER BACKWARDS? OK, I'm starting to sound like Martha Stewart here, or one of those how-to cooking magazines, but seriously...
I had had the day from hell, finally attacking my long-overdue housecleaning from top to bottom, and after discovering the creeping growth of MOLD on more than one wall in my apartment*, all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and die.
So what did I do to get my mind on other things? I pulled out the ingredients I had (for once) so cunningly gathered together on Saturday morning at the local market, and in less than an hour and a half, my blue-eyed companion and I were digging into an absolutely scrumptious rôti de veau aux épices. I should have known before I even got started that this recipe had all the makings of a winner: cinnamon, check! ginger, check! fresh cilantro, check! cumin, check! Oh, and not to mention that garlic clove, the organic lemon and the red onion. All mingled together in a heavenly sauce that simmered over the stove for less than an hour, and was then poured over a bed of couscous semolina with raisins and almond slivers. Ahhhhh... All the bad karma of that whole day just melted away, and I wanted that meal to last forever! And what made it even better was the simple fact that I had prepared it myself.
Plus, the presentation, further evidence that this recipe is a keeper: once you lay out the slices of veal on the couscous, you sprinkle some fresh cilantro over the top, and voilà, a work of art!
Oh, and one final thank-goodness for French butchers: that veal roast might have cost me a pretty penny, but it was oh-so-tender, so definitely worth every Euro.
For once, I was actually looking FORWARD to my leftovers at lunch yesterday...
I think I'm (finally!) getting the hang of this cooking thing... (Then again, don't ask me about the pork roast I mangled 2 weeks ago -- that's another story for another time.)
If interested, click on this so you can share in my delight!
* The withering letter I sent out to our rental agency today, registered with return receipt, also helped me get out of my funk -- at least for the moment. We'll see if it gets anywhere... These are the people, after all, who told me that I shouldn't be calling and bothering the landlord so often when our apartment was BURGLED last summer! God forbid I do anything other than write them their rental check en bonne et due forme on the 1st of every month.
2 comments:
That recipe sounds amazing.
It's so amazingly easy, I swear! Trust me, coming from a major cooking novice, you seriously cannot go wrong with this one...
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